The horticultural industry is responsible for approximately half of the invasive plant introductions in North America. To reduce these introductions, voluntary initiatives are preferred over government regulations. This thesis aims to evaluate the effectiveness of two types of voluntary initiatives. At the gardener level, I investigated the effectiveness of alternative species promotion campaigns, called “Grow Me Instead” programs. Adult gardeners visiting the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ontario, as well as customers at two garden centres, participated in a conjoint analysis which measured their preferences for various traits of potential ground cover species. Results showed that gardeners generally prefer plant species having invasive characteristics, suggesting these programs may not be as effective as initially believed. At the retailer level, this study aimed to build upon the work done by Burt and colleagues (2007) to obtain further understanding of the relative strength of internal (ethical motivations) and external (legislation, stakeholder pressures and economic opportunities) factors for motivating participation in voluntary initiatives. Telephone interviews were conducted with 30 industry professionals from southern Ontario to assess their adoption of the St. Louis Voluntary Codes of Conduct. Results found that participation rates of industry professionals in southern Ontario were lower for every specific initiative than those interviewed by Burt et al. (2007). Industry professionals presently experience the most pressure to participate from a sense of personal responsibility and the desire to create a green business image. Pressure was significantly higher from these sources than from pressure from employees. Together these two studies identified several barriers to the efficacy of voluntary initiatives as well as some reasons for optimism. To ensure the success of future voluntary initiatives, efforts must be made to encourage these two groups to work together. Understanding how both retailers and gardeners respond to voluntary initiatives will assist in the development of more effective programs and lead to fewer horticultural invasive species introductions in the future.

Firms may gain benefit from each other‘s skills and resources when they engaged in a long term supply chain relationship, hence, improving their competitive advantage. Adoption of information technology initiatives such as e-procurement systems may further enhance the effectiveness of the relationship. Trust and dependency factors have been identified as important elements that influence business relationships. The objective of this study is to investigate the role of technology attributes, inter-organizational trust and inter-organizational dependency manufacturer‘s have towards their suppliers and customers when making an e-procurement adoption decision. This study also aims to determine if there is a critical gap between trust and dependency towards suppliers and customers and to identify which trust and dependency constructs have the most critical gap. Data was collected through case study interviews and mail survey questionnaires. It was analysed using the Partial Least Square Regression (PLS) analysis where the results indicate that dependency did have a significant positive influence on e-procurement adoption decisions, while trust did not. Size of the company, which is a control variable, has a significantly negative effect on adoption decision. Hence, this study confirmed that the level of dependency and size of company did influence an e-procurement adoption decision. Three gap analysis methods, namely the T-test analysis, weighted mean gap and the un-weighted Important Performance Analysis (IPA), were adopted and the results indicate that there is a significant gap between trust and dependency towards the supplier and customer, where the level of both variables are higher towards the customer than the supplier. Construct related to communication of problem is identified as trust factor with the most critical gap, while how partners help improve a firm‘s reputation and the level of knowledge transfer have the most critical gap for dependency. This study extends the body of literature related to information technology adoption factors by investigating the effect of trust and dependency in supply chain relationships within a single study. While findings on dependency and size of company are consistent with previous studies, findings on trust provide a new paradigm to trust-related studies as it is identified as not an important factor that influence e-procurement adoption decisions, particularly in a developing country such as Malaysia.

Thesis (M. of Public Health) -- Univ. of Adelaide, Department of Public Health, Adelaide, 1998. / Funded by the Primary Health Care Initiatives Program. Bibliography: p. 161-170.

No description available.

Campus sustainability and sustainable food production at universities across the nation are gaining in popularity, and student led gardens are an important and distinctive part of this movement. Student initiatives at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC) have led to the creation of a Sustainability Council and Green Fund which has provided a tremendous amount of support for the student led organic garden (LOGIC) on SIUC's campus. The purpose of this research was to provide a thorough, evaluative case study of the campus garden at SIUC in order to explore its past, its current structure and resources, and to suggest a model for its future. Through student surveys and qualitative interviews with key experts it was found that a paid garden manger position, consistent funding, more production, more volunteers, more awareness, and a critical look at current goals and practices were needed for LOGIC's continued success.

South Africa’s rural communities have received Information and Communication Technologies services through initiatives such as tele-centres, living labs, Thusong service centres and donations of computer applications. There is need, with little plans in place to ensure that the rural communities will benefit from those initiatives. As a result of this, it is necessary to establish a framework for implementing Information and Communication Technologies for development initiatives in order to ensure successful implementation of these initiatives in rural communities. Literature shows that in order to successfully implement an ICT initiative for rural communities, there should be active engagement with ICT stakeholders, consultation of Information and Communication Technologies policies, presence of ICT infrastructure, ICT services, monitoring, evaluating, training and maintenance. Current literature on ICT developments shows that in order to successfully implement an ICT initiative for rural communities, there should be active engagement with ICT stakeholders, consultation of ICT policies, and presence of ICT infrastructure, ICT services, monitoring, evaluating, training and maintenance. Unstructured interviews were used as a research method to collect primary data that was used as a basis to develop the proposed framework. Findings from the studies carried out indicated that several ICT4D initiatives which were abandoned due to challenges such lack of proper resources, trainings, lack of local content, access, lack of ownership and lack of stakeholders’ involvement. This study presents a framework for implementing ICT for development initiatives in rural communities which has been developed in order to reduce the number of initiatives that are abandoned or which end up not serving their intended purpose in rural communities of South Africa.

This qualitative study focuses on the intersection of Organizational Studies and Public Health. Through the use of cross-sector work, the Public Health field coordinates work across multiple organizations to diagnose and prevent health issues. Interviewing several administrators from organizations who partake in the Healthy Ontario Initiative allowed me to examine how organizations of different types and sectors interact and connect around this project. This study will predominantly focus on the challenges they face, how they overcome them, and how they are evaluated. Highlighting the intersection of Public Health and Organizational Studies and the way a current Public Health initiative organizes and delivers services may impact the way in which the field evolves in the future.

Although corporate environmental accountability is receiving unprecedented attention in the United States from policy makers, the capital market, and the public at large, extant research is limited in its examination of the implications of strategic corporate environmental initiatives on accounting and auditing. The purpose of my dissertation is to address these implications by examining the association between firm environmental initiatives and audit fees, capital expenditures, and earnings quality using multivariate regression analysis. I find that firms engaged in more strategic environmental initiatives tend to have significantly higher audit fees and capital expenditures, and significantly lower levels of earnings manipulation measured using discretionary accruals. These results support the notion that auditors do recognize the importance of environmental initiatives when conducting the year-end financial statement audit, an idea that positively reflects upon the auditor’s monitoring role. The results also demonstrate the increased amount of capital resources required to participate in strategic environmental initiatives, an anecdotal notion that had yet to be empirically supported. This empirical support provides valuable insights on how environmental initiatives materially impact corporate financial statements. Finally, my results extend the extant literature by demonstrating that the superior financial performance reported by environmentally active firms is less likely driven by earnings manipulation by management, and by implication, more likely a result of real economic gains. Taken together, my dissertation establishes a strong and timely foundation for current and future research to explore corporate environmental initiatives in the United States and globally, a topic increasingly gaining momentum in today’s more eco-conscious world.

ICT policies instituted over a number of years by the South African Government have clearly failed to establish Information Communication for Development (ICT4D) initiatives amongst rural communities in South Africa. The author of this thesis argues that, for rural South African communities to reap the benefits of ICT4D initiatives, it would be necessary for the communities to empower themselves and to take ownership of initiatives to participate in the planned South African Information Society. Furthermore, the author argues that the success of the ICT4D initiatives depends very strongly on an understanding of the interaction of such initiatives with the social context at local community level. Some of the significant aspects of the social context at community level include an understanding of the roles of leadership, technology, economy, governance, social welfare, and stakeholders in these communities. Through a grounded methodology approach a theory of context was developed for the rural community in the Dr J.S. Moroka Municipality in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The elements of the framework that emerged were Leadership, Stakeholders, Governance, Social welfare, Economics and Technology (LSGSET). The resulting framework is proposed as a tool that can be used by the community members to interact with the role players who intend to implement ICT4D projects or policies that have an impact on the community. It should also assist policymakers while they develop contextualized policies and improve project managers’ understanding of the developmental impact of the implementation of ICT4D projects on communities. One of the contributions made by this thesis is to “bridge” this divide between policymakers and communities by explicitly framing the developmental discourses of the community as a framework for ICT4D engagement by policymakers and communities at local level. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Informatics / PhD / Unrestricted

Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 1997. / After the Second World War the West became actively involved in Third World development, focusing on the diffusion of information and technology, in its plight to persuade the Third World to adopt Western innovations and to change its behaviour accordingly. Growth and success were measured in economic terms and infrastructural development was usually the outcome of development. The communication approach (development communication or DC) coincides with this paternalistic approach and is top-down and one-directional. After the failures of this dominant approach became evident, a number of alternative approaches were proposed, culminating in the new paradigm, which supported equal status between benefactor and beneficiary, two-way communication, dialogue, and community participation, and emphasising the value of beneficiaries and their culture and traditions. In contrast to DC arguments for the mass media, the new development support communication (DSC) theory supports the small community media. The DSC approach may be applied effectively in small scale development efforts, such as community projects, provided the benefactors are willing to learn from the community, and do not "negotiate" development from a position of status or power, in order to identify the community's real needs. It is impractical to apply the DSC approach on large scale (national provincial, or regional) development projects, due to high costs and the time needed for of small group discussions. These reasons often prompt benefactors to choose the option of a communication campaign as a medium to convey messages. The DC/DSC discourse permeates the field of communication campaigns, dividing these practical frameworks into communicator-orientated campaigns (DC), and campaigns that combine aspects of both the DC and DSC approaches (integrative model). The integrative model inherited the top-down nature of diffusion of information from the DC approach as well as its focus on \aige scale projects, the mass media and externally created messages. These characteristics are then combined with the DSC aspects which are aimed at assisting beneficiaries to empower themselves by acquiring information, to formulate their problems, to suggest solutions and to take their own decisions by focusing on their own needs and interests. This includes aspects such as information sharing on an equal level, beneficiary participation, and the small media. The technique of market segmentation, dividing beneficiaries into (relatively) homogeneous groups, can be applied in large scale and small scale projects. In small scale projects such groups might already exist within a community, and need only to be identified. The Population Development Survey indicated that age, more than gender, should be the guideline for market segmentation in north-eastern KwaZulu-Natal. Younger people tend to enjoy the entertainment provided by roadshows. Edutainment combines entertainment with education, wfach is culturally not a new concept for these respondents. The older and more rural the respondents, the more they value interpersonal communication, but of the mass media, radio is the most popular. In large scale development projects the study suggests using the mass media in conjunction with the small media. The mass media are often used to create a general awareness of the existence of an issue/campaign, and face-to-face situations are created where the issues, dealt with in the mass media, are discussed in detail.